If you’re one of my friends, or have met me previously and know how I roll, then that’s not too difficult a concept to imagine or believe.

I am a proud geek though, Buddy Holly glasses and all.

The ever-so-cool Buddy Holly

One of the positives that came from being a nerdburger at such a tender, young age, was that teachers would do the most generous favours for me in return for giving them such an easy ride as an educator.

My all-time favourite teacher was Melanie who taught me in Grade 4. This was the year that through her, I discovered the joys of Edgar Allan Poe and J.R.R Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’. Not only that, I also commenced trialling the new fang-dangled home computer and the latest programs such as ‘Become a Typing Whiz’ with Mavis Beacon, or the more rounded education from McZee of Microsoft.

Typing so frequently eventually became a creative outlet and before my teacher Melanie knew it, she was being inundated with the musings of a young girl in the form of stories and mainly poems. Yep, I became a little poet.

The Poet ... a seemingly 'Ghost'-like movie ... NOT indicative of the style of my youthful poems

The kindest favour that Melanie did towards the end of Grade 4 after receiving a solid collection of these poems, was create an Anthology of Krystina’s works for me. It contained ‘masterful’ pieces, such as my first, The Tiger:

Creeping through the forest in the light of day

Crawls the creepy tiger hunting for its prey

…

Do you see? It rhymes! Plus, it creates imagery. Wasn’t I a-MA-zing?!

Many years later in Year 11 at high school, the entire year level was requested by the English department to create a poem based on a pre-selected title. You could have chosen The Hero, The Hulk, or the Loner. Guess which one I chose?

…

So much for self-reflection!

The Loner

Fresh fruit

Ready to be picked

Can’t wait to sink their teeth into that.

Like a banana, they peeled away his pride.

Like an apple, they took great big bites that later turned brown.

Like an orange, they squeezed him dry until all his sweetness was gone.

Like a kiwi, they stripped all his defences until there was nothing he could do.

Like a sultana, they left him shrivelled in the sun.

Like a lemon, he became sour at those who squeezed him.

All that was left were the peels and the core.

And they left the loner there,

To rot like the insignificant pulp he had become.

By Krystina Menegazzo in Year 11

(Notice that the shape of the poem even looks like a piece of fruit? Molto intelligente, no?)

Now that I’m older, I have much more focused geek tendencies. Take wine, for example. The only consolation with that is that I’m part of a much larger clan of passionate people who centre their lives around the beverage of the grape.

Friends

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